Review: ADAM RICHES IS COACH COACH, Soho Theatre, March 16 2016

I high-fived Coach Coach (he's a coach named Eric A. Coach in an unlikely but entirely appropriate piece of nominative determinism) and before long I was barking "Yes Coach" like it was first day at boot camp. The fourth wall didn't need so much breaking as constructing in the first place, and the mainly youngish house were well up for a bit of audience participation from start to finish (and I mean finish!).

Adam Riches has developed his comic character from cameos into a full one-hour show that is delivered at a frenetic pace with the laughs piling one on top of the other - if you miss one, there's another coming in ten seconds time, so, whatever... The story concerns the eponymous Texas High School volfsball coach who is, after failing to nail the Championship shot 25 years earlier, somewhat over-invested in his Centaurs Team's attempt to break the Lizards' Team's 75 year winning streak. There's plenty of caricature, parody and stock stereotypes from countless American teen movies, but that's pretty much the point of the gig, so no complaints there.

Riches himself never lets up giving it the full Jurgen Klopp non-stop over the hour. He gets excellent support from the young comics he has brought along for the ride, with Emma Sidi's feisty Missy Coach and Daniel Cook's oily baddy Swish Swisherstein the standouts. A mention too for Richard Gadd, who delivers a great turn as Principal Tucker with a nod to the Rocky Horror Show's Dr Everett V. Scott.

In a show like this, the cast (and us) have the most fun when things go awry or when the ad libs burst through the script - who doesn't like to see an actor fighting a corpsing - but the underlying dramatic and comic structure must be rock solid and, in Coach Coach (at Soho Theatre until 2 April), it is. The hard yards have been put in by the team and they get the result they're looking for.

Now let me hear you say "Yeah!" I said, LET ME HEAR YOU SAY "YEAH!"

Photo Idil Sukan